The Languages you wish to learn

Porthos · The Languages you wish to learn

What are some of the languages you wish to learn? That is, languages that you have not already learned. I would like to learn the following:

French
German
Italian
Portuguese
Dutch

I basically only wish to learn other West Germanic languages and Romance languages. I'm not very interested in other groups. If I had to learn an Asian language I would like to learn Japanese.

Pauline

For the moment I don't wish to learn more languages, but improve what I knwo of the languages I've learned / learn now.

If I would have the plan study languages at the university then proablly i would learn soem more languages. This woudl be : japanese, italian, arabic, sanskrit. But I want to study medicine so I must concentrate learn sciences and languages are a hobby.

it is the opinion of Brennus, that it's not possible knwoing more that 2 languages. He put this on a message on antimoon.

Benjamin [inactive]

Call me eurocentric, but I have to admit that I don't really have any intentions of learning any non-European languages at the present time.

I suppose one could say that I've sort of learnt French already, but I'm not completely fluent yet. However, I will be studying French at university, which will probably be for the next four or five years, starting this Autumn.

I already know some German as a result of spending two weeks doing an intensive language course in Germany last summer. However, I will be studying German at university as well — again, probably for the next four or five years.

I used to do Spanish at school until just over a year ago, and although I can't produce it myself very well (anymore), I can still read it better than I can read German. However, I have a picture large picture dictionary with 20,000 words in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. As I go through it and learn (or make sure I know) all the French and German words, I'll probably learn the Spanish and possibly even the Italian words as well.

I'm going to Poland next month to stay with Polish people, so I'm going to have to learn some Polish before I go. I'll have to decide afterwards whether or not I'd actually consider learning Polish properly.

I'd also like to learn at least one 'smaller' Germanic language — possibly Dutch (which I've sort of started learning already as I'm going on tour with the orchestra to the Netherlands later this year), Danish or both.

Additionally, I keep meaning to learn Esperanto properly.

Icke

I want to learn the following languages:

1. The language of one of our neighbours, Dutch

2. a North Germanic language, probably Danish. I’m still not so sure but
maybe Fredrik will come and recommend learning Norwegian...then I will
think about it, lol

3. Spanish, since I’m very interested in the cultures of Central and South
America. I used to have Spanish at school for one year where I only
learned the basics.

Shouga

Too, too many.

I'm learning French at school, but I dislike it and don't feel any fondness towards the language at all; if I were to continue my French studies next year, it would only be because I've already started them, and I 'may as well' continue.

Icelandic, Norwegian, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese and German are my top languages of the moment, all for their own diverse reasons. And Esperanto also. But in all honesty, I can't see myself becoming a good standard in any of these selected languages, and as a matter of fact, I can't see myself ever becoming a 'good standard' or 'fluent' in any language at all. I don't have the determination, motivation or stamina to stick at any given task for a long period of time; meaning that yes, I may be a Jack of all trades, but I doubt I will ever become a master of any given task at all.

Shame, really. But those are the languages I want to learn, anyway, no matter how impossible it is to achieve any good standard in them.

Tiorthan

Irish at the moment. I want, at least, be able to understand native speakers on TV and read irish books without need to use a dictionary.

Next on the list is Finnish. I might as well improve on my French and Polish, especially the later one since I have quite a lot of relatives in Poland.
I thought about Japanese or one of the chinese languages but I have not really learned enough of them to decide which would tempt me.

Harrenys Targaryen

My top three are Arabic, Icelandic, and Swahili.

The first combines aesthetic with utility.

The second enhances my penchant for pretension and also represents the culmination of my experiences within the Germanic branch.

The third sounds earthy and writes plainly, counteracting the second at appropriate times while emanating a sense of purpose itself.

Loic

I am sorry. You must have stated this before Tiorthan, but where are you from?

I read in the newspaper about an Irishman working for Irish Gaelic TV. He conducted an experiment whereby he travelled across Ireland (both Eire and Ulster) speaking only in Irish. He recounted that in Dublin, he was brusquely asked by a pub owner to 'speak English or get the hell out' and that some people in Belfast remarked that 'Irish is a lovely language as long as it isn't forced down our throats'.

I do not want to learn any new languages unless I am given the extra capacity to do so. In fact, I believe that Man is born to be monolinggual and complete fluency in two languages is a lot to ask, not to mention three or more. Even someone who is amphidexterous would prefer one hand over the other, wouldn't he?

I'd like to improve my French, for a start. Maybe acquire a Quebecois nasal twang as I think it's a rather cute and funny accent to have. Currently, I feel that my accent is a most unremarkable hybrid of a Singaporean and standard French accent with maybe the Singaporean one having the upper hand most of the time.

I'd also like to improve my command of Mandarin and the other southern Chinese tongues which I already speak.

Lastly, I'd like to acquire a mastery of the English language that'd allow me to speak in limericks throughout the rest of my life if I so wish. Now, that's something to wish for, isn't it?

Loic

Harrenys Targaryen

Loic

Those letters certainly have a hint of exoticism. But one of the ligatures is not wholly foreign to us. I've seen æ in words such anæmic, encyclopædia, pædophilc, hæmophilia, etc.

Lazar

Spanish is the language that I've devoted the most effort to, and in which I have the greatest proficiency. I'm also in the process of learning French, Italian, Portuguese, and German. Ideally, I'd love to be able to speak all 5 of these, which are sort of the "big 5" of the Americas and Western Europe. Other languages that I'm interested in are Welsh, Dutch, Latin, and Russian.

Pauline

I forgot to put in my message the language what I would like to learn :sign language for people who can't hear, like the language daniel can speak. Mostly I learn things alone but I think that for this it wouldn't be possible, so I dont know where can I learn it.Probably it would be very nice meet a person who can't hear so that we can use this language but I don't know someone unfortunatly.

fab

for the moment I don't want to really learn new languages, but would better improve the ones I already started to learn : Spanish, English, Italian, Catalan.

But I would be pleased to learn few basic things in Portuguese, Arabic, japanese, German, Dutch, Swedish, and Chinese... and maybe others.

Deborah

Like fab, I'd mainly like to get better at the languages I already have a handle on, and continue to acquire smatterings of other languages. So, I want to concentrate on Spanish, then maybe go back to French and Italian. For some reason, though, I'm not that interested in getting back into Russian.

Harrenys Targaryen

David

Polish
Dutch
Norwegian
Spanish
Portugeuse
Arabic

Loic

HT: No longer today, I suppose. I think the point is that such a ligature used to exist in English spelling but is now dismissed as an anarchronism.

But I noticed that american spellings do away with the 'a' in words like encylopaedia or mediaeval.

Akoni

My goal is to learn as many languages as possible to be able to speak to as many people as possible.

Loic

Is Malay on your list of languages then?

Out of curiosity, do Dutch people of Indonesian extraction continue to speak Malay at home? More precisely, do people like Giovanni van Bronkhorst and Johnny Heitinger have at least a cursory knowledge of the bahasa ibu or mother language?

Akoni

Loic

Baik! Finally someone here who is actually curious about Bahasa Melayu (Bahasa Melajoe in the old Dutch-based orthography)!

Maybe you'd get an extra helping from the makcik at an Indonesian restaurant if you were to place your orders in Malay.

Akoni

Porthos

I don't know about you, but I like languages for one of two reasons. Either I truly like them for how they sound, or I like them simply because they're easy for me to understand because they are related to a language I already know.

For instance. As far as Germanic languages go, I like German, but I also like Dutch, although it sounds incredibly harsh, just because at least when written, I can understand a good portion of it.

I don't really like Portuguese by the way it sounds, but I like it simply because I can understand so much of it, as it is very closely related to Spanish.

Lazar

Just as a whim in the last couple of days (and I do get linguistic whims practically every day), I've started learning Swahili. This language appeals to me because it's the most prominent representative of the Sub-Saharan language families, and because it has a simple phonology and orthography. I've tended to concentrate on European languages, so I find it really refreshing to learn an agglutinative, non-Indo-European language. So far I've been learning it from websites, like Kiswahili Grammar and Yale University's Kamusi Project. (Unfortunately, I have 0 people to speak it to, and I don't really have access to much Swahili literature...but I've never let those kinds of things get in the way of a good whim.)

Deborah

Jambo, Lazar! I once came across a series of phrase books for various languages not commonly taught in the US (including Swahili) that had some information about the grammar. I bought the Swahili booklet and read through it. All I retained from it was the word for insect (mdudu) and its plural (wadudu) and the fact that the m-/wa- prefixes were one of several sets of prefixes for different categories of nouns.

I enjoyed reading about the grammar, and I think it would be an interesting language to learn.

Shouga

I think Swahili's the first language I ever decided to properly try and learn; think I decided that when I was about 10 or 11. I can only remember basic words now, such as 'giza'... 'nuru'... 'nyoto'...

Uriel

Tiorthan

Deborah

Loic

Subpoena is being discouraged in courts today in favour of witness summons. I suppose the courts prefer the Latin expressions to be toned down in favour of a language that is more easily accessible to the man on the street.

I recently discovered that fetus is actually a more proper spelling. Damn it, I was always under the illusion that foetus is not only aesthetically more pleasing, but also a superior version to its american counterpart.

To the americans here, would you spell the famous Encylopaedia Britannica as the Encylopedia Britannica then?

Julian

Loic

That's what I doubt. However, I had reservations initially as we tend to give our spellings to well known american institutions such as Pearl Harbour and the infamous World Trade Centre.

Uriel

I've never seen subpena. (But then, I don't hang around a lot of lawyers.) It's always been subpoena, and it's a perfectly good word -- I wouldn't drop it in favor of witness summons -- besides, pretty much everyone knows what a subpoena is!

Loic

It is not that american spellings are declasse, to use your word. It is for the sake of consistency that one version is preferred over the other and we somehow tend to be positively disposed towards our version of spelling.

After all, fetus was a misspelling in schools here until recently. The reason why I mentioned it was because of a letter written by a parent to the local broadsheet. He said that when he was in school, he was penalised for spelling fetus; now, his child is penalised for spelling foetus. Science is no fashion, but words definitely are.

Uriel

But you said, and I quote:

Marie Reiher

Marie Reiher

Hmm, I would like to brush up on my French, which is much worse than my German and I feel it is quickly fading...

If I had all the time in the world I would love to explore these languages:

1. Norwegian (don't know why, but I have always liked Norway the best of the Scandinavian countries)

2. Maybe Portuguese because I have only heard it a few times but it sounds very interesting and I am not crazy about the sounds of Spanish and Italian

3. That said, I might like to study Italian because of Italy's contributions to western civilization -- also, my sister studied Italian and it would be fun to be able to converse with her

4. Possibly a little bit of Dutch because I find it is somewhat similar to German and may therefore be easier for me to learn than some other languages.

5. An African language would be cool -- not sure which one, though. Some of them sound very cool.

6. Maybe Japanese or Mandarin

7. Russian

Again, this is if I had all the time in the world :)

Marie

Loic

Marie:

The Quebecois accent is something which grew on me after too much exposure to Un Gars, Une Fille. I deeply sympathise with the Quebecois, seeing them as the perennial underdogs fighting against the tide of history.

It is curious that Spanish isn't on your list. Or maybe you already speak it idiomatically.

PS: Your avatar is visually stunning, I must say!

Marie Reiher

Porthos

Uriel

Her location says New York. Somewhere upstate, obviously.

Porthos

She obviously doesn't live in the city, or else she would be used to all those blabbering Puerto Ricans. lol

Joanne

Wanderin

OK, so my wish list:

1. German
2. Czech
3. Turkish
4. Finnish
5. Japanese

And to become fluent in French, coz well, i know this language, i can handle a small talk, i can read papers, i even watch films and understand something, listen to songs and understand here and there and I write, not perfectly but kinda OK, so what i'd like is to SPEAK, bavarder bcp avec vous les mecs

Fredrik

Welcome, Wanderin! Are you litterally unterwegs?

Wanderin

Thank you Frederik!

ja ja ich bin unterwegs naturlich

Pauline

wohin?

Wenn du möchtest, kannst du auf dem deutschen Fred schreiben. Aus welchem Land kommst du?

Wanderin

Ich komme aus Russland und ich bin unterwegs in Russland auch, die Arbeit du weisst. ich spreche Deutsch nicht wirklich, ich suche nur....

skippythesquirrel

I've done a semester of Spanish and 3 years of German (including two months in Berlin with friends)... I did three years of French in high school, but my French is awful...

Aside from perfecting those, I'd love to learn Latin, Polish, Gaelic, Turkish, and Ancient Greek...

Pauline

Hi skippythesquirrel

Do you like squirrels? i think that they're very nice animals, and sometimes they visit our garden, but not often.

If you want to write german, you can visit the german threads. Hier hast du den Link, obwohl es eigentlcih ganz einfach ist, um den Fred zu finden.

http://langcafe2.myfreeforum.org/ftopic100-450.php

wie du dort sehen kannst, haben wir auf der letzten Seite auf englisch geschrieben: das tun wir aber normalerweise nicht.

Bis bald beim deutschen Fred.

Daniel

Fluent: English and British Sign Language.

Wants to learn (already knows the basic but wants to go even further): Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Greek, Malay, Tagalog, Japanese, Arabic, American Sign Language.

Already knows (not yet fluent but conversational/advanced): French.

I'm fortunate that I live with a Greek flatmate so he is teaching me Greek (on the condition that I teach him British Sign Language too). And my boyfriend is teaching me Dutch since he's Dutch and I'm also teaching him sign language.

Tagalog, Japanese and Arabic are on my list because they are spoken in my family and I want to be able to understand my own family. And Spanish is my ancestral language (the language that my ancestors spoke - in fact, my grandfather, who was Mexican-Filipino, was the last native Spanish speaker and died in '87 and nobody speaks it anymore in my family so I want to bring it back).

Walker

Porthos, how come you don't like the way Portuguese sounds? Is it because it's relatively close to Spanish? If that's the case I think I can understand how you feel. It's not that I dislike Norwegian and Danish but they are similar to Swedish and yet so 'wrong', and this can be cause for some annoyance.

There are of course many languages I'd like to know, but learning them is a different matter. The Spanish and Portuguese-speaking communities aren't enormous in this town. Spanish shouldn't be impossible, though. To my great relief there are other cities - cities where opportunities are more and bigger. I was in Gothenburg (Göteborg) this weekend... um, and my Spanish-speaking brother could help me learn Spanish.

Daniel

Porthos

Deborah

Daniel

I love how Brazilian Portuguese sounds. So beautiful. So soft, mellow and dreamy.

Lazar

I also really enjoy the way Brazilian Portuguese sounds.

Walker

Porthos

Deborah

Walker

Llatai

I've been studying Welsh for a few years now, and I can read and write it fairly well. I'd like to learn Russian. Although I studied German in school I remember very little. I would be nice to learn a tonal language like Chinese too, though I'm probably dreaming. I started a class in Mandarin years ago and quit after two weeks! Either I'm too lazy or its too daunting - or both.

André in Zuid-Afrika

Llatai

Hello Andre, I live in the US.

Porthos

Well I'm delighted to hear that you've undertaken the challenge of learning a Celtic language! Celtic languages are generally very difficult for a Germanic speaker, and they don't offer much incentive to learn them, as there are very few Celtic speakers left these days.

How proficient are you in Welsh?

Llatai

Thanks, I have Welsh ancestry which initially sparked my interest. Yeah, there are about 500,000 to 650,000 Welsh speakers, depending on whose stats you're reading. The good news is that the largest number of new learners are under 15 which gives hope for continuity, being a minority language surrounded by one of the world's most prominent ones. Its a puny figure when compared with the millions or hundreds of millions of speakers of other languages, but that's not the sole criterion for learning a language. Though it's impossible to find anyone to speak with here, the internet provides ways to communicate and practice the written language. Yes the incentive to learn a Celtic language is less. I'd find alot more use for Spanish or even Russian, since I could seek out enclaves of speakers for either of them successfully, there's just something about Welsh that appeals to me, and that appeal grows with my familiarity.

I can read and write at about an intermediate level, meaning I understand the grammar pretty well, but I'm a clumsy speaker and not fluent yet. I don't have much hope for speaking proficiency, since it requires so much rote learning to maintain quick recall in addition to practice with others, but I'm working on improving my reading fluency. Because of this focus, my writing style is formal and you can tell I'm a "book-learner." I read and understand the news in Welsh on the BBC's Welsh site without any trouble, looking up vocabulary words as needed, but its harder for me to understand the Welsh spoken on video streams from Welsh TV online, mainly because they speak so rapidly and there are a number of accents. Even some fluent speakers in Wales find it hard to understand accents from different regions. This scale of diversity for so small a country is remarkable.

I want to improve my writing so that its alot more natural, correct and stylistically pure, meaning it has fewer syntactial influences from English. Reading helps quite a bit. Good practice, good fun - keeps me off the streets.

Llatai

By the way, anyone who wants to hear what Welsh sounds like -

www.wedi7.com

If your computer is fast enough for video, click on a date, watch and listen! This is a news magazine program from S4C, Welsh language TV.

Porthos

At this point, I would love to learn French and Dutch.

My favorite language is Italian. I just think it sounds the most beautiful, but it's not practical for me to learn it at this point, living in North America.

I want to learn another Germanic language, and Dutch seems to be the easiest, although the Scandanavian langauges have a very simple grammar system for an English speaker.

And I want to learn another Romance language. One that's different from Spanish, but yet sufficiently similar to learn with ease. That equals French. French is also the most practical at this point.

So, I want to study Spanish at the university level and improve upon it, and learn French and Dutch.

German sounds a lot smoother than Dutch, but I find it to be much more difficult, so I'd rather go with Dutch.

Deborah

Porthos

Deborah

So it is quite possible that some of the people I heard didn't grow up speaking it.

Benjamin [inactive]

Porthos

Benjamin [inactive]

Llatai

Deborah

So maybe what I took to be a lack of ease in the language among some of the younger speakers was actually careful enunciation. I have to say, though, the way the old guy in the first video spoke just sounded more pleasing to me.

Llatai

Anchors and reporters are probably coached or hired for their ability to speak relatively accent neutral Welsh, so they can be understood by the widest audience. Interviewees are speaking more in their native dialects and accents. Yeah, older people do tend to have heavier accents. Mass media in Welsh being a relatively new phenomenon may be one reason.

By the way, the gutteral sound like Scottich "loch" is written the same way, using "ch", though that's considered one letter in Welsh even though it has two characters.

Daniel

Deborah

Hmm...what I was pointing out was that it was the old Welsh guy in the video who had the soft "ch" and some of the young ones who sounded as if they were about to spit something up.

Llatai

Maybe its a generational thing. I remember a few years ago there was a Welsh teacher passing through who gave a one day class in Welsh at the local Welsh society which I took, mainly for pronunciation practice. She advocated a hard "ch" sound and told us not to be embarassed to speak with gusto, and to pronounce the "ch" like you're clearing phlegm. She was in her late 20's.

Perhaps younger people just have more wind to expel, at least at that end of the orifice spectrum.